Observant readers may have noticed that in the last couple of days, the Goodreads widgets have been missing from my blog. Here’s why.

I got a surprise email from Goodreads on Sunday morning. Apparently, someone had complained about one of my reviews because it only had the link to my review on this blog in it. They said that it violated their review policy, so they removed it. They said if anyone else complained about other of my reviews in the same state, they would remove those.

I found that interesting for a couple reasons. (Actually, I found it infuriating.) One, when I started using Goodreads 12 years ago, I sent them an email asking if it was okay to link to my blog. They said yes, it was encouraged, and they didn’t tell me I had to write anything else. I felt that putting in part of my review and then linking to the review was redundant, so I have simply stuck to a statement referring to my review with the link. And I have done that for more than 2000 reviews over 12 years.

It is also interesting, because the majority of “reviewers” simply pick a number of stars, and at least my review did more than that.

So, first I looked for this policy that I had apparently violated. I couldn’t see a place for it on any of the menus or submenus. I looked for a link to it on a review page for a book. I found nothing. Finally, I clicked on the link to the policy that they emailed me, and as far as I can tell, this is the policy I innocently violated. The only way I can tell this is because the other policies don’t have anything to do with this issue. I haven’t harassed anyone, plagiarized anyone, or abused their rating system.

Full reviews that link to a blog are acceptable, as long as the blog is not selling a competing book and using the review to denigrate the book being reviewed in favor of its own.

The word “full,” I guess, is supposed to convey that you have to write something in addition to a link. Otherwise, this rule is about something else entirely. There is no rule that outright says you have to leave a text review in addition to a link.

I sent them an email explaining all of this, and the response I got just repeated everything they had already said. To my comments about not being able to find their reviews policy on their site, they actually responded this:

 For security reasons, we do not share details about our guidelines or moderation processes. 

So they’re purposefully hiding their policies? Is that what that means?

In the meantime, I was so angry, especially at the pettiness of someone bothering to complain about my review, that I decided to look for alternatives. I finally decided to switch to The StoryGraph because it allowed me to import my Goodreads data (some of it) and because it was one of two alternatives that allows me to use my computer rather than an app on my phone. I have Goodreads app on my phone, but I never use it.

While I was researching alternatives, I heard for the first time about some of the controversy surrounding Goodreads since it was bought by Amazon. Some of it involves not following up when authors complain about blackmail attempts by people who threaten to load their books up with one-star reviews if they don’t pay up. I found this interesting because Goodreads does allow you to post star reviews with no other content, whereas The StoryGraph does not. You have to at least make some selections about the type of book it is even if you don’t write anything. Apparently, it is okay to Goodreads to leave just stars, even if this can be abused, rather than linking to a full and legitimate review. And it is interesting to me that they would not follow up on blackmail threats by removing the one-star reviews but then remove mine.

I may have cut off my nose to spite my face, because I am having to get used to the new interface, and in some ways I don’t like it. It is a lot harder, maybe impossible, to see all the books you have reviewed. I used the Goodreads spreadsheet feature a lot, and they don’t seem to have anything like that, although I have asked. (I can export all my book information and figure out how to get it to tell me what I need, but I’m too lazy.) As far as traffic is concerned, my blog stats inform me that I got eight referrals from Goodreads in the last year, so that seems insignificant. I do have one follower who came over from Goodreads that I know of and who leaves comments on my blog occasionally, but I don’t think I have lots of them. I don’t know how many users The StoryGraph has, but probably a lot fewer than Goodreads. The only social feature that I used on Goodreads was to see what one of my friends was reading, just one. So, I’m not going to miss that.

Anyway, all I can say is, bye, bye Goodreads.